Dashing Lawrence: Punctuation in Women in Love

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Some extraordinary passages in Women in Love are punctuated by sequences of long dashes, which challenge not only the silently reading eye but also a reader trying to read them aloud. To answer the question of how Lawrence’s dashes might be delivered orally, I examine those sequences in light of scholarship on the history of punctuation. Attempted renditions of some examples are included in the endnotes. As well as elucidating some hitherto unappreciated aspects of this novel’s social comedy, I make a case for reading Lawrence as a modern master of dash-work.